


Saudade

by Lollipop_Panda



Series: Life, Love, and you [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24169627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lollipop_Panda/pseuds/Lollipop_Panda
Summary: Usually, messages sent at 2am to your ex don't go all that well.Komi and Konoha have never been very good at sticking to the rules though.
Relationships: Komi Haruki/Konoha Akinori
Series: Life, Love, and you [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739956
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Saudade

Everyone knows it’s a good idea to listen to sad songs when you break-up. Everyone has that playlist of songs they use after a break-up, and it’ll change a little for every break-up and painful event in their lives. 

So of course, sitting in one’s lonely apartment at two o clock in the morning listening to a sad playlist they made five years ago after a particularly painful break-up -if it can even be called that- can only be the best idea of all. 

Konoha blinks the tears from his eyes and cuddles his long-empty cup of coffee closer, looking up to the ceiling as the next song comes on and he can physically start to feel the pain it had put him through, and is still putting him through even after all this time.

He feels pathetic. He feels stupid and small and insignificant as he pulls the blanket off the back of the couch and wraps himself in it, only having the thought to put his cup down on the coffee table first because it’s his favourite and he can’t handle the mere idea of damaging it right now. He stares at it until he can’t bear it any more and closes his eyes, curling in on himself as a sob wracks through him so harshly it hurts. 

Good. It’s what he deserves isn’t it? For being this stupid. 

It’s been five years and he’s been fine. He’s been absolutely fine and held himself together and gone on other dates and had the time of his life. He’s changed and grown into himself. And yet why is he still so hung up on something that ended five years ago?

Konoha knows why, but still refuses to admit it to himself. So instead he picks up his phone and scrolls social media, sends meaningless messages and tries to interact with friends in some desperate attempt at normalcy and escape from this spiral he’s letting himself go down. 

He’s scrolling through contacts, trying to decide who to get in touch with without seeming suspicious, but of course he has to see a number that he’s refused to let go of. 

Breathing becomes a challenge and Konoha closes his eyes and rests his phone against his forehead as he allows another quiet sob to escape him, deciding he can have that one. 

It’s not like they’d lost contact either. No, he and Komi had stayed in touch, albeit loosely; much less than Konoha would have liked, but things had felt awkward, even when they’d promised to stay friends. Because long distance friendship is supposedly easier than long distance romance. 

Konoha has to laugh, the sound weak and wet and pathetic, and he sniffs noisily as he brushes his tears away, frustrated now with everything; at Komi for leaving, at himself for not trying harder to keep in touch. For letting what was left of their relationship dwindle into nothing but ashes, feeling like the life they’d basically shared for almost twenty years didn’t mean anything any more. 

And by all the gods, did that hurt. 

It takes another sob for Konoha to decide he really needs to talk to someone before he absolutely loses himself and it’s too late, and there’s only one person he actually wants to talk to. 

Desperation and hurt mingle and push past the fear to help him send a single ‘hey’, the long gone date of their last exchange staring back at him like some accusation, pushing a knife into his very soul, and it takes everything in him for Konoha to hold in the next sob that tries to break free, as if he still can’t let it out in the intimacy of his home, as if keeping them in will help him pretend he’s okay, will hold him together like he isn’t made of crystal and there isn’t a giant crack going through him threatening to shatter him to pieces at the slightest movement. 

The phone in his hand vibrates with an incoming call and Konoha hastily wipes his eyes again and clears his throat, answering the call and shakily bringing the phone to his ear, staring unseeingly at the floor, 

_“Hey back”_ Comes Komi’s voice across the line with what used to be their usual greeting, and the rush of emotions that goes through Konoha is almost too much to handle as a breath escapes him,

“H-hey,” He has to clear his throat again, both to give himself time to process and also to catch his breath, “Uh, how’s you?” It’s awkward and unsure and his entire being is trembling, his emotions too strong and many to be able to be processed in any other way than by manifesting physically, 

_“I’m good,”_ The answering tone is light and easy and Konoha _misses him_ so much, yearning and hurting and curling in on himself even more, arm wrapping around his knees as he buries his head between them like he’s sixteen all over again and not a grown twenty-nine year-old with a steady job and bank account to his name, _“You?”_ And there it is, the dreaded question. And Konoha can’t answer, voice stuck in his throat as he swallows a cry of despair, sniffling weakly. 

He hears a sigh and rustling on the line, and then Komi’s voice is back, gentler and almost unsure, 

_“Listen, Aki,”_ If Konoha was struggling before, now his lungs have stopped functioning too, _“I don’t even know why I called. I didn’t plan out a conversation, I have no idea if I even wanted to say anything in the first place,”_ Konoha squeezes his eyes shut harshly, as if he can un-hear the words if he tries hard enough, pretend they don’t cut him down to his core and shake the fragile integrity of his very being,

 _“But I got your message and before I knew it I was pressing the call button. I had a gut feeling and we both know those are usually good so I listened to it and I’m glad I did because I can tell something is going on. And it’s fine, you don’t have to tell me anything but I just- I need to remind you that whatever happens, I’ll always be here for you Akinori. You hear me? Always.”_

Konoha can’t answer - too distressed and relieved and relishing in that long-missed voice and yearning for the comfort of arms that had helped hold him together long before they were dating to trust himself to make any sound right now. Komi seems to take the silence as a cue to continue. He always used to, and Konoha physically aches with the knowledge,

 _“I know we’ve lost touch over the past few years. God do I_ know,” And even after all this time Konoha can still tell when Komi is going to start rambling, pouring his heart out like an unattended dam bursting in a flood, _“And I think of you every day and wonder how you are but I’m a coward because every time I think of getting in touch I convince myself you won’t be interested or you’ve forgotten me completely and that thought hurts more than staying in denial. Stupid huh? How I’m confident in absolutely everything but I’m too scared of losing you for good to even check-in any more. I miss you so much Aki, some mornings I still turn around in bed and expect you to be there. I’ll dream of you and we’ll just spend all night cuddling but then you get taken away from me and I wake up feeling so empty._

 _“And I have no idea if I’m helping at all or if you’re even interested in knowing all this and hey maybe you meant to send that message to someone else but it’s_ my call _you answered so that has to mean something, right?”_ Komi pauses to take a breath and Konoha seizes his chance, 

“I miss you too,” He says as clearly as he can, voice broken and shaky with emotion, and for a moment he’s afraid Komi hadn’t heard him but the pause on the end of the line is too long, “I miss you _so much_ ,” He adds, breaking into a sob and squeezing his eyes shut again, feeling pathetic and disgusting all over again, but then Komi’s voice is in his ear and he sounds so distressed it brings Konoha out of his misery and self-loathing enough to listen to his words, needing to console Komi more than he needs to wallow in his own pain,

 _“Aki, no no please don’t cry! N-not over me please I can’t… I can’t handle if you cry because of me. Not again…”_ And the way Komi’s voice breaks as if he’s holding himself together just as desperately as Konoha is only makes him cry harder, _“Please, Akinori please don’t cry, n-not over me, you deserve so much better than this,”_

Konoha shakes his head, too far gone to care if Komi can’t see it, 

“But it’s you I want,” He croaks out, fighting back his tears, “I’ve tried moving on Haruki, I have and I just can’t- I k-know it’s been years now and I know you’ve probably changed because I have but I- I can’t move on Haruki. I’m stuck…” Shame grips at him and Konoha bites his lip to keep a pathetic sound from escaping, staring up at the ceiling in some useless attempt to slow the tears,

 _“I’m still in love with you,”_ The words are quiet and full of hope and they sound like one of the secrets they used to share, the ones meant for his ears only. And Konoha feels like he’s breathing for the first time since he watched Komi go through that wretched security gate at the airport five years ago, vision blurry from tears. 

“Wh-wha- how- Haruki what?” He stutters out, sniffling and wiping at his eyes, trying to pull himself together, “It’s been five years you can’t-” 

_“I can,”_ Komi interrupts with that conviction that he’s always had. The one that made Konoha fall for him in the first place. The one that would shove him out of bed in the mornings to go to school, the one he used when he took his hand one day on the way home and linked their fingers and looked up to him as if in challenge, _“Aki. It was always you. It’s always been you and it’ll always be you. You were my first love and I know you’ll be my last. I know you don’t believe in that kind of thing and I didn’t either but- it’s been five years and there hasn’t been a single person able to bring me what you did. What you do. Konoha Akinori I am in love with you. I have loved you all my life and I am doomed to love you until my last breath,”_

Konoha’s own breath catches in his lungs and there’s heat racing through him and his heart is in his throat and his mouth opens without asking for permission from his brain, 

“Doomed huh? Thanks, nice to know I’m a punishment,” The words are out, as easy as breathing, as easily as they would have been all those years ago when the two of them huddled on his mother’s couch to watch bad horror movies and Komi would recite poetry from an old book he’d found in his grandfather’s library. Easy. Even as his voice is weak and brittle from crying and his nose is running and the skin on his cheeks is tight from barely dried tears.

Komi’s laugh is the same as it was back then too, and Konoha can feel those dreadful ashes start to glow as his heart swells with the sound, 

_“The best kind of punishment if you ask me,”_ And just like that, there’s a weight off his chest. 

Konoha isn’t stupid. He knows this hasn’t fixed everything, and that five years is a long time; that people change, and he and Komi will need to re-discover each other and find a compromise for the half-world that currently separates them. 

But if five years and an entire ocean hadn’t been enough to keep them apart, he’s pretty sure they can manage. 

After all, ashes are what things are reborn from, are they not?

**Author's Note:**

> I am incapable of writing unhappy endings... I hope this tugged a little on your heartstrings though 
> 
> as always, find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/PocketoPanda)


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